


One of the Rotten Ones

by placentalmammal



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Caper Fic, Dogs, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 16:45:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13150794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: "It's easy to forget, but the Six didn't act alone. They couldn't've,noneof those fools could've done what they did without help. No, it's easy to forget about the others: that girl with the yellow eyes, the girl whousedto have a sister. They were in love, you know, but that's awhole'nother story, and we ain't got time for that tonight."





	One of the Rotten Ones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Marielda Zine <3

Six months after Train Day, the excitement surrounding the Crosstown Express has died down considerably. In Samothes’ holy city, miracles stale in the blink of an eye. When the impossible, sky-bound train passes overhead, nobody bothers to look up and marvel anymore. It’s just another feature of the changeable landscape.

Caroline and Miss Salary sit side-by-side on the platform at the University station, the dogs at their feet. Frank and Beans loll on the pavement, tongues hanging out, heads resting on their forepaws. It’s too hot for them, poor things, with their thick fur and shaggy undercoats. Caroline, dressed as she in layers--chemise, drawers, corset, petticoats, stockings--sympathizes. It is not yet noon, but Samothes’ sun is hot overhead and she has already begun to sweat through her shirtwaist. She fans herself with a gloved hand and reaches down to pat Beans, working her fingers down into the silky hair behind his ears. The dog sits up halfway and leans against her, tail thumping noisily against the macadam.

Beside her, Miss Salary is cool as marble, unaffected by the heat. She’s dressed casually in a linen blouse and wide-legged trousers, unfashionably hatless. Her yellow eyes sparkle in the sunlight as she nudges Caroline and gestures toward a dark-skinned man standing halfway down the platform, checking the schedule and idly twirling a watch on a gold chain. “Him?” she says softly, lips brushing the shell of Caroline’s ear.

Shivering despite the heat, Caroline follows the other woman’s gaze and shakes her head. The young man is dressed cheaply but fashionably, in a shiny shirt with a satiny cravat and a tiepin set with an enormous, shining stone. “Look at his shoes,” Caroline murmurs. They’re cheap leather, the uppers peeling away from the soles at the toe and heel. “He hasn’t got any money, he just pretends he has. And that’s not even a real diamond, just paste and glass.”

“How can you tell?” asks Salary, her brow furrowed.

“Hitchcock,” says Caroline, by way of explanation. She sits up straight, and Beans fixes her with a doleful look, mourning the loss of ear scritches. “He brought a jeweler in to teach us the difference. I always thought it was odd, but he--they--said that nine-tenths of dueling is appraisal.”

When Salary laughs, Caroline can’t help but join in. She hides her giggles behind her hand and watches the other woman out of the corner of her eye, fixating on the dimples that appear when she smiles. “Alright,” says Salary. “Fine. You pick, then.”

With a last, lingering gaze at Salary, Caroline cranes her neck and scans the crowd. At this early hour, it’s mostly students and workers, a few Pala-Din among them to check tickets and keep order. She passes over a young father with a gurgling baby and a severe man in priestly vestments, and her gaze settles on a gray-haired woman in a tidy suit. She’s by herself on the edge of the platform, clutching a briefcase to her chest and scowling at anyone who dares to meet her eyes. Her rings shine like real gold, and her cufflinks are luminous pearls as big as grapes.

More than once, the older woman turns to scowl at a trio of Black Slacks standing a few feet away, talking and laughing and tugging at the stiff collars of their vivid patterned shirts. They take no notice of the pinch-faced woman, but she frowns at their backs, her pale eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Caroline lifts her chin, indicating the older woman with a nod. “Her.”

“In gray, with the briefcase?” Salary’s brassy eyes shine with wicked intent. “She looks likely, I think.”

“It’s plain she’s running late. Probably called a cab, but it didn’t show,” says Caroline, leaning in close to whisper into Salary’s ear. It occurs to her that they must look like a pair of young lovers, all twitterpated and lost in one another’s company, and the thought makes her heart leap. “What’d’you think’s in the briefcase?”

“Gold,” says Salary, a little breathless. “Emeralds and rubies. A deed to a manor in Chrysanthemum Parish. A map to Samothes’ secret treasure vault.”

Caroline stretches her legs out, rearranging her calf-length skirts. “It’s probably just contracts and papers,” she says. “Boring, but worth something to someone, I’ll bet.”

Salary nods, a grin spreading across her face. Her eyes gleam and her dimples deepen, and she is feral and lovely in the indirect sunlight spilling in over the slate rooftops. Looking at her, Caroline’s stomach does a series of complicated twists and flips and comes up to settle somewhere in her throat.

“What’s our play?” says Salary, and her business-like tone does not match the mischief in her eyes. “The usual?”

With difficulty, Caroline looks away. “Yeah,” she says, and she distracts herself petting the dogs, bending double to pick up their leashes. Frank and Beans look up at her, tails wagging, panting and happy just to be involved in the plan. She pets both dogs to give herself a moment to collect herself, and then she straightens up and sets her eyes on their mark. “Alright,” she says, aping Hitchcock’s usual bravado, “let’s do this.” She moves to stand, but Miss Salary catches her by the hand.

“One more thing,” she says, and she tips her head up to catch Caroline in a kiss.

Caroline squeaks in surprise and nearly drops the leashes. One of the dogs--Frank or Beans, she isn’t certain--whuffs in confusion and Miss Salary laughs and kisses her again. Her lips are every bit as soft as Caroline imagined--softer, even. Wonderingly, she reaches out and sets a hand on Salary’s face and then she’s kissing back, a little clumsy in her eagerness.

She kisses Salary three times: once for luck, again for good measure, and a third time just because. Her heart sings in her chest, and when she finally pulls back, she’s pink-cheeked and breathless. “Alright,” she says, flustered. “Alright, let’s--let’s do this.”

Grinning, Salary waves her off. She remains in position on the bench and Caroline sets off down the platform, unable to keep herself from smiling. She moves deliberately toward the older woman, setting herself on a collision course. The dogs help, bounding ahead and darting in and out through the crowd, scattering students and homebound commuters. When Caroline crashes into the woman with the briefcase, the dogs weave in between Caroline and the older woman’s legs, hopelessly entangling them in the leashes. Caroline cries out in choreographed alarm and then shifts her weight, toppling to the ground and landing heavily on top of the older woman. The briefcase goes flying and the dogs are suddenly everywhere, twin hurricanes of wagging tails and red-gold fur.

The older woman is furious, spitting curses as a pair of Pala-Din step forward to help them both to their feet. Caroline makes a tremendous show of apologizing, hurrying to gather up the other woman’s things only to drop them again. The dogs, well-trained monsters that they are, rush around and leap up on the Pala-Din, generally getting in the way and interfering with all attempts to set things to rights.

“Damn you!” says the woman, red-faced and shaking with rage. “Damn you, you clumsy oaf, why don’t you look where you’re going--”

On cue, Caroline bursts into noisy tears. They had already drawn a crowd, and when she begins to cry, the tide turns abruptly against the older woman. Two of the Black Slacks come to Caroline’s defense, returning the leashes to her hand and dusting off her skirts while the third glares reproachfully at the older woman. “It were an accident,” they say, spitting on the ground. “She didn’t mean anything by it, you old bat--”

She sobs into her hands and allows herself to be lead away by the two handsome young men, who are very concerned with her wellbeing. She gives each of them a watery smile, and, through tears, asks to borrow a handkerchief. They dig into their pockets, and when they look up, she’s vanished, along with the dogs and the briefcase and the yellow-eyed young woman who had been hanging back and watching the crowd.

Caroline and Miss Salary rendezvous at a café several blocks away. Caroline has the dogs and Salary has the briefcase, and they’re both grinning madly when their eyes meet.

“You were incredible,” says Salary as Caroline drops into the seat opposite her own. “Absolutely incredible!”

Caroline mimes a bow. “Thank you, thank you,” she says. “I’ve had practice, and I’ve got a good partner.”

“Partner,” says Salary softly. “Is that all?” She reaches across the table and takes Caroline’s hand and squeezes it. Heat rushes to Caroline’s cheek and she squeezes back, suddenly too shy to meet the other woman’s gaze.

“I think that--I think I’ve had more-than-partnerly feelings for you,” Caroline admits, eyes in her lap instead of on Salary’s face.

Salary laughs, not at her. “I have more-than-partnerly feelings, too,” she says, mock-serious. “I have for a while, ever since--” She falters and falls silent, and Caroline looks up at her. Uncertainty sits very strangely on Salary’s pretty, plump face.

“Since the incident at Memoriam College,” finishes Caroline, and she cannot bring herself to look the other woman in the eye. She swallows and tries not to think of her sister or the empty urn on the bookshelf in the tidy flat they used to share. And it occurs to Caroline, as she’s trying very hard not to think about it, that she doesn’t know whether her sister’s body was lost in the fire or the riot or before that, when Carolyn was cornered by that creeping, sonorous horror, the nothing-faced woman in the black veil.

A tear splashes on the back of her wrist and she pulls her hand out of Salary’s grasp, removing her glasses and setting them on the table beside the unread menu. “She would’ve like you, I think,” she says, sniffling. “She was absolutely rotten, but she would’ve liked you.”

“She couldn’t have been all bad,” says Salary, her voice soft. “She was your sister.”

Caroline nods and scrubs furiously at her eyes with a balled fist. This is the first time she’s spoken of her twin since her death. It’s been months and months and nobody has even mentioned Carolyn or said they’re sorry for her loss, not even Hitchcock who has a brother of his own--

“She was an awful singer.” Caroline plucks a daisy from the vase in the center of the table, winding the long stem around her pointer finger. “And she had the worst crush on Hitchcock. If she knew I was working for him--them--she’d be furious.” She sniffs again, blotting at her tears before they fall.

Salary makes a soft, sympathetic noise. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It sounds as if you loved her very much.”

“I did,” Caroline admits. “Is that foolish? She was awful, but she was my sister.”

“Not at all. I--I felt the same way when Master Latitude died. He was--we were--he was family, whatever else he might have been.”

Caroline feels a pang of guilt at that--Latitude died by her sister’s hand, Carolyn’s last victim. But Salary did not mention him to needle at Caroline or challenge her grief. Miss Salary’s sympathy, like her affection, is uncomplicated and guileless. Swallowing her tears, Caroline looks at Salary across the table and feels tremendously tender toward her.

Hands a-tremble, she takes the daisy and leans across the table to tuck it behind Salary’s ear. It’s the same color as her eyes, the same vivid hue that distinguished every student of the Yellow House. It suits much more than it did the others; brings out the golden undertones in her brown skin.

Caroline’s hand lingers on Salary’s cheek and she leans forward in her seat to bring their lips together. “Everything that happened that night,” she says softly. “I’m glad, because I met you.”

Salary laughs at that, not unkindly. “Sentimental fool,” she teases. “You’ve gone soft, Fair-Play. Whatever happened to the daring scoundrel who stole my heart away?”

Smiling, Caroline catches Salary’s bottom lip between her teeth and bites down, just hard enough to show how not-soft she is. The other woman responds enthusiastically, and there, in a dingy sidewalk café in the heart of Marielda, under the light of Samothes’ sun, they kiss one another breathless.


End file.
